Sunday, November 4, 2018

2018 Pumpkin Ale 1.0

The finished pumpkin ale

My wife and I enjoy a good pumpkin ale. My personal favorite is Hoppin' Frog's Frog Hollow Double Pumpkin Ale. I also enjoy Heavy Seas Great'r Pumpkin (a barrel aged pumpkin ale) and Southern Tier's Pumking. I found a recipe recently that looked promising, so I scaled it down to fit the Zymatic and ordered the ingredients. Tonight, I brewed it.

The beer will then be run through my counter flow chiller into a sanitized fermenter. It will be chilled further down to the low end of the range for US-05 yeast, then a full packet of US-05 pitched on top of the wort.

The fermentation schedule will be at least one week at 66F, waiting until the gravity holds at the same figure for 3+ days, at which point I'll add finings and cold-crash the beer for a few days before bottling.

Post-Brew Notes and Observations

11/4/2018: This is the first time I've tried doing a pumpkin beer in the Zymatic. The style can sometimes be a challenge in a brewing system when canned pumpkin is used, as it is usually finely pureed and can "gunk up" the brewing system if you don't keep an eye on it. I stirred it in with the dry grain prior to mashing and added some amylase enzyme to help convert more of the pumpkin's starches into sugars to aid in raising the gravity of the beer.

Despite adding amylase and pH 5.2 stabilizer during the mash, the gravity on this batch came out about 5 points lower than expected. Wort came out of the counter flow chiller at approximately 77F. I pitched the yeast at that point, directly onto the wort, as 77F is a recommended rehydration temperature for it. However, I've configured the temperature control system to hold the beer at 66F, so it immediately began cooling the beer.

11/5/2018: It's about 24 hours since the yeast was pitched. Temperature has held at 66F. Gravity has dropped from 1.055 SG down to 1.051. That's 7.3% attenuation and 0.53% ABV so far.

11/6/2018: Gravity is down to 1.032 SG. Temperature holding at 66F.

11/7/2018: Gravity has dropped to 1.018 SG. Temperature at 66F.

11/8/2018: Gravity is now 1.014 SG. I turned the temperature up to 70F to help the beer finish out.

11/9/2018: Gravity is down to 1.013 SG. Temperature control was turned off overnight and the beer is holding at 69F. This represents apparent attenuation of 76.4% and ABV of 5.5%.

11/11/2018: While the gravity and temperature have held steady the last few days, there is still an impressive amount of yeast on top of the beer - perhaps between a half and three-quarters of an inch thick (the fermenter in this case is clear so I can see that without opening it). This suggests that the yeast are still active and working, so I am leaving the fermenter alone for a few more days to see if the yeast drops out of suspension. A sample removed from the fermenter showed a good squash aroma with a mild spice aroma. The flavor was good, but I felt like it could use more spice. I'll probably add more at bottling.

11/14/2018: The gravity has been holding very steady now for for several days, so it was time to bottle. Since I'd hoped to serve this at a family gathering next week, I decided to try force carbonating a gallon of the batch to have ready for that, and bottle the rest. The bottles were primed with four carbonation tablets each (medium carbonation). The forced-carbonation vessel was set to 11 PSI to get approximately 2.5 volumes of CO2 in a day or so.

12/13/2018: I was very disappointed with the beer as it came from the mini-keg back at Thanksgiving. Tonight I opened one of the few bottles of the beer and took the photo at the top of this post. Below are my notes in the form of a BJCP scoresheet, treating it as a competition beer.

Aroma (10/12): There is a definite pumpkin pie spice aroma with a touch of pumpkin to it. There is a sweetness to it as well. In terms of what I want from a pumpkin beer, this is just about perfect. I'd like to smell a little bit of biscuit or crust here, but it's otherwise perfect.

Appearance (2/3): The beer pours a hazy orange color with finger-thick, very creamy, off-white head that lasts a long time. It might be nice if it was a bit clearer, but that's a minor nit. The beer leaves a nice lacing in the glass similar to a Belgian style beer.

Flavor (14/20): The flavor starts malty and mildly sweet. The spice and pumpkin come through to a moderate degree. I'd like to see a bit more cinnamon and a touch less ginger, I think, but it's good. The hops presence is just enough to let you know this is a beer, and not a pie, but not so much that it seems like a pale ale the way some pumpkin beers do. I'd like the Biscuit malt to come through more. I might even consider some Victory here instead (or in addition).

Mouthfeel (5/5): This has a very creamy medium to full mouthfeel that makes me think of a bite of pumpkin pie with Cool Whip on it. It's just what I would want it to be.

Overall Impression (7/10): This is not too far from what I wanted. With less of a ginger note, more of a biscuit note, and maybe a touch less sweetness it might be perfect.

Total:38/50

Here are the changes I'd make in the next version:

Increase the Biscuit malt or Victory malt to 6 ounces, to see if we can bring that flavor out.

Drop the mash temperature from 159F to 158F to very slightly dry the beer out without losing too much of the creamy body.

Investigate replacing the pumpkin pie spice "mix" with individual spices so that I can alter the proportions to get the spice flavor where I want it, with less of a ginger and allspice note and a bit more cinnamon and nutmeg.